These last few stages are offered for those who have been following themousemaster’s excellent guide. Should he find the time to continue, this one will likely go away. Please note that this is not the only way to approach these levels (and someone will say that it’s not the best way), it’s just one that I find works consistently for me with no unit loss.

I realize that the original walkthrough was done with red units, but all my saved games were done with green units and I didn’t feel like starting all over right now.

Gamma 6

During the interlude between Gamma 5 and Gamma 6, you’ll see a threatening monologue from Nexus. He’s planning on torching you with his laser satellites. We’ll need to prepare for that, but not quite yet. First, it’s time to collect the units you hid from the nuclear blast way back in Gamma 2 and meet up with a scout team from Team Beta who need your help. The scout team consists of 3 Cobra Medium Cannon tracks and 3 assault gunners, all with zero experience. They’re worthless, so plan on throwing them out front as cannon fodder, or recycle them at your first opportunity. Team Gamma also has a small base here that is equally useless and consists of a few buildings and two trucks.

Let’s take a look at an overview:

This is another two-part mission. Our first task is to assume command of Team Gamma’s base at position 2 and we are given ten minutes on the clock. All we need to do to accomplish this is send one unit within sight of the southern base, but we can hold off on that and put the time we’ve been given to better use.

Two things will happen as soon as the cut scene ends. Your forces located at position 1 have met up with the Beta scout team and will come under attack by a couple of Nexus cyborgs just to your east. The Nexus units won’t survive, and you don’t have to intervene. At the same time, our base from Gamma 5 located just north of your current position will begin shelling the area and the cyborgs if you set up your base as shown at the end of Gamma 3. Once the cyborgs are dispatched, they will turn their attention to the base at position 3.

Extract a single truck from the mess at position 1 and have it build sensor tower A as shown below. When it is completed, your northern artillery will resume firing at the north central Nexus base. When the five structures marked below with a white X are destroyed, move your truck forward to build sensor tower B. Your artillery will finish off the north central base, and you’ll see an artifact left over by the cyborg factory, but we can’t get to it just yet. When we “rescue” the SW base, we’ll get access to our entire northern base and this artifact.

We will continue to use the northern artillery emplacements to do all the heavy lifting, and then let our MBG mop up the leftovers. For now, keep all your other units out of harm’s way as far NW as you can get them at position 1. Move a truck or two down and build sensor tower C (just south of the tree) as shown above. This tower will probably come under attack from the central base, but it should survive. This tower will spot the Team Gamma base in the SW, reset the timer to an hour and a half, and start the shelling process of the central Nexus airbase (position 4).

Pick up the artifact (Needle Gun) in the remains of the north central base and start researching it and all its related technology. It’s the needle gun and will eventually lead to the rail gun. We’ve got a ton of research again this mission and we’ll need all the time we can get.

From here, start a slow sensor creep SE from tower C toward and up the ramp to the central airbase. Hug the outside edge of the ramp and try to stay out of range of the rail guns. If your truck or towers come under attack, just back up a couple squares and try again. Replace northern artillery emplacements as needed and eventually they will wipe out the enemy counter artillery. Keep proceeding SE until the central airbase is gone. Another artifact is waiting here (advanced VTOL production). Use your truck to grab it, but watch for the scourge towers down to the SE. They shouldn’t hit you, but be careful. Toss up one last sensor tower a couple squares SE of the center of what’s left of the airbase and you’ll get those scourge towers also.

Now we can go after the final SE Nexus base at location 6. Place a repair station somewhere NE of the central plateau. Assemble your Main Battle Group with the ground units and commander you left at position 1 (use your factories to round out your MBG, if needed) and head south into the base. It shouldn’t take more than one or two pushes to destroy this base. As soon as the active resistance is gone, set your MBG to hold fire and mop up the rest selectively. You want to leave the AA site I marked below to milk this stage. There will also be a couple of towers left over south of the former airbase. Swing over and clean those up as well.

There’s a lot to research and build, and we’ll need all the time we can get. You should have a good hour left at this point. Let’s put it to use. There are two artifacts here: the Nexus Retribution medium body and the Avenger SAM. Grab them and get researching.

During Gamma 7, Nexus brings his laser satellites online and will blast everything in your old base from the LZ north. We have to move our critical structures and any remaining vehicles south of the pass into the area we just cleared. Tear down your factories, research facilities, power stations, command center and command relay center and rebuild them anywhere south of the LZ. The central plateau works well, as do the valleys to the east and west of it. Only do one research station at a time and reassign research to them as you rebuild so you don’t lose too much time. Feel free to leave the rest of your structures north of the LZ for Nexus to use as target practice. Set up the south end of the map as shown below and position your MBG right next to the last AA site. Milk this stage for power for as long as possible. When all your research is done and you are ready, set your MBG to Fire at Will and take out the last AA site.

After Gamma 6, this level is simple, and comes with a 2 hour timer. Don’t waste time, though – we have a lot to do before the next mission.

Push your MBG down the east side of the map and advance on the Nexus base in the SE corner. Have a couple trucks bring up the rear placing repair stations as necessary. You may not even find the need to push and retreat, just watch the bottlenecks. When you arrive in the SE base, wipe it out but be careful not to let any unit touch the eastern most missile silo (the three structures with the radiation symbol on them.) Doing so will capture the silos and end the level. There are three artifacts here (Rail gun, Angel Missile, and Pulse Laser), and researching everything will take quite a while so get working on it right away.

There is one more small Nexus base in the SW corner and a few defenses scattered through the center of the map that need to be dealt with. Take your MBG back north almost to where you started and drop down into the central valley. Head south through the valley removing opposition as you go and head into the SW base. Again, watch for a couple minor bottlenecks and wipe them clean.

Preparation for Gamma 8

You should easily have an hour and a half left on your timer at this point, so let’s get set up. Everything south of your old LZ is about to get the Death From Above treatment, so we have to relocate again. This time he’s not going to stop at an arbitrary line, though.

Recycle all your combat units – VTOL’s, mobile artillery, MGB and commander. It’ll get them out of the way, and eliminate the chance of any of them getting blasted by the laser satellite. All you should have left are trucks. Just like in Gamma 6, tear down and rebuild your five factories (forget the VTOL factories – you won’t need them), five research facilities, five power stations, command center and command relay center. Apply all the upgrades to the appropriate buildings. We need to set up everything as close to the southern edge of the map as possible, with our research facilities furthest south – right on the edge of the map when possible. Leave some space between them so he can’t damage two facilities with one blast. Keep the critical buildings in the area of the green rectangle below. The layout doesn’t matter, just hug the south map edge.

While you’re doing this, build all the oil derricks so we can max our power. You should be able to end this level at 100,000 if you’ve been milking along the way.

(Note: Ignore the fact that the defenses you can see built in this photo don’t match the text below. This was from a trial of alternate strategies – go with the text.)

We also need to set up several lines of overkill defense. Waves of Nexus ground and air units will be assaulting us throughout Gamma 8. Ground troops will be attacking from the blue arrows. Feel free to blockade all openings at several points within the area of the blue rectangle. Don’t even bother trying to defend your base north of that point. The laser satellite will be starting from the north end and working it’s way all the way south to the silos taking most of your defenses with it. All you will have to do is keep ground troops from reaching the silo or your research facilities.

At the same time, Nexus air units will enter periodically from the yellow arrow. Scatter AA (whirlwind AA with a few vindicator SAMs) in the area of the yellow oval and they’ll be dealt with.

When your power is maxed, all research is done, and you’re all rebuilt, just have a single truck touch the eastern missile solo.

END GAMMA 7

Last edited by Crocuta on 26 Jul 2011, 09:25, edited 2 times in total.

Welcome to Gamma 8. Yes, this is the longest, most boring level in the campaign. No, there is nothing you can do to make it better. Let’s get going!

As soon as the briefing ends, assign the Nexus resistance circuits research to a facility. It won’t complete before the 5 minute deadline that Nexus gave you to leave and he’ll fire up the lasers again. The blasts will start at the north edge of the map and slowly work their way down south. When the resistance circuit research is done, you have to research each of the three missile codes in sequence. All the while, you’ll watch Nexus throw itself against your defenses, and blast you from orbit. Eventually (usually during the third code research), he’ll start skipping structures and the pace south will accelerate. You will want to keep your research menu up constantly – if he manages to hit the research facility that is researching a code, immediately assign it to another facility. When all three codes are researched, the level ends.

Actually, there is one more mission after Gamma 8, the grand finale as one might say... It is a transport mission, however, if you have no troops (because you recycle them) it might take a while to set it up. Perhaps it is best to hide your troops by the landing pad? Nexus rarely hits that area (SE corner). Well, rarely...

In my spare time, I've been replaying Gamma 9 ad nauseam to see if there was a better way than the way that I had been doing it. I'm a big fan of minimalist approaches, and I like seeing how little one can get away with and still have a clean, elegant solution. Sure - with 100,000 power you can go for a scorched earth strategy, but what fun is that?

Sorry for the delay in this posting. This is a long level, and it took me a while to figure out how to best represent it for clarity.

GAMMA 9

Well, this is it. Time to take the fight to Nexus’s front door.

The final mission starts with a 30 minute timer. You have that long to launch your first transport to the Nexus base. After that first launch, this becomes a timerless stage. We have several things to accomplish before we head off to engage Nexus. First, look at any structures you lost during the laser attack last round. Ensure that you have a minimum of three fully built factories and three research facilities (building all five of each is acceptable, but really optional), and the other major support structures.

If you haven’t already done so, redesign your units now as Command Turret Retribution Tracks, Scourge Missile Retribution Tracks, Pulse Laser Retribution Tracks, and Rail Gun Retribution Tracks. I know this seems like a step down from the Heavy body we’ve been using, but Nexus has some great armor and it will make the difference. We won’t be using any mobile artillery in this stage because they’ll die. Quickly. When the redesign is done, rebuild your MBG, starting with the Commander and then roughly equal numbers of the other units (I use 8 Scourge, 7 Rail Gun and 7 Pulse Lasers.)

Load up four trucks, your Commander, and five other mixed combat units onto the transport. When you are satisfied with the state of your base, launch the transport to Nexus’s main base.

Nexus has two major things going for it here: 12 Archangel missile emplacements with a longer range than anything you’ve got, and terrain that is one solid bottleneck from beginning to end. In addition, Nexus Link towers are scattered throughout, and you’ll see them occasionally mounted on mobile units! These should be engaged first wherever encountered to prevent conversion of your units. Also, the pictures I show here are only representative of the initial state of the map. Nexus randomly builds structures throughout this stage, so you may run into something not seen on my pictures. It keeps things interesting.

Let’s start with a quick overview map. Notations match the areas referenced in the text below.

Your LZ is located in the NE corner of the new area, and within a small mountain depression. Moving too far to the south through the pass, or moving too far up the hill to the west will alert Nexus to your presence and start the attacks. You don’t have forever, however. Eventually you will be attacked either by air, or via ground through the pass. Before then, we need to secure our LZ. Build anti air and a repair bay as shown in the photo below. Make sure that no unit crosses the marked lines before you are ready to proceed. While your trucks are building defenses, ferry in the remainder of your MBG. Transport time is only one minute, so this process will be quick. When the LZ is secure, and your MBG is complete and formed up (make sure it is set to Retreat at Medium), move it south through the pass.

(Units moved out for clarity)

The valley to the south of the LZ will be of major importance for the first half of this stage as you secure the east and central portions of the map. I’m going to refer to this as the Staging Area (SA) throughout. You’ll need to secure this next before you move any further. Attacks will come from the south, west, and via air. Keep your MBG in the center of the SA and deal with incursions as they present. Bring down a couple of trucks and build defenses as below. We’ll wall ourselves into this area for security and then tear down and rebuild as we deal with each area.

(Units moved out for clarity)

Start with AA defenses as shown. Whirlwind AA with a few Vindicator SAM’s will do the job.

Build hardpoint defenses at point A. You may only want to use one truck for most of this wall. Two or more bounce into each other and put themselves into range of the southern archangel emplacements. This wall rarely gets used, but there is a group of mobile units patrolling the plateau to the south that infrequently decide to come play.

Then build three hardpoints at point B. There is a slight rise here, so get them up on the high ground. These will keep the regular attacks from the SW under control until you can get back to them.

(Skip Point C for now – we’ll get back to that in a few minutes.)

When that’s all done, build three repair bays roughly spaced as shown. You’re going to need them, unless you enjoy waiting while everyone stands in line.

As soon as you leave the SA in any direction, you’ll come under attack by the archangel missiles. The trick throughout this stage is to keep moving and avoid allowing your retreating units to jam up the advancing units. If you get stuck, the Archangel missiles will cut you to pieces in short order.

The first area to deal with is a small outpost just west of your LZ (area 1). Take your MGB west from the SA and wipe out the defensive wall and the structures behind. Proceed as far as and destroy the Nexus Link towers to the NW. When the outpost is cleared, move your units back into the SA and build hardpoints at point C. Repair units as needed. Have you saved recently? Do it now (and often.)

Your next target is a small base located at area 2. Demolish your hardpoints at point B and get your truck out of the way. Move your MBG south and then immediately west. At this point, you’ll see what happens when all twelve archangel missiles are targeting you. As long as you can keep everyone moving, you shouldn’t have any trouble keeping everyone alive (although it is a little nerve wracking.) The only target of interest here at the moment is the factory – head straight for it and grab the artifact. Don’t stop to look at what you’ve got! Turn around, take out the rest of the defensive wall keeping you from running quickly away and get back to the SA. The entire time, fire from the sky will be raining down and if you dally, you’ll end up losing a unit. Replace your defensive hardpoints at point B.

The artifact you retrieved is the Nexus Vengeance heavy body, and you’re going to need it. Assign it to a research facility. This part is a little time consuming, but it’s worth it to wait here behind your walls until this research is complete. The Vengeance is better suited to withstanding the missile bombardment with its much improved armor.

When the heavy body research is done (and you’ve started research on the related technology), open up your design screen and redesign your Commander Tracks, Scourge Missile Tracks, Pulse Laser Tracks, and Railgun Tracks to use the Vengeance body. Now we’re going to do something that always makes me a little nervous. Make sure your defensive walls around the SA are fully built, place a truck or two at each location for repair as needed, and then recycle your entire MBG.

Rebuild your MBG, starting with the Commander and then roughly equal numbers of the other units (again, I use 8 Scourge, 7 Rail Gun and 7 Pulse Lasers.) As they are produced, load them up on the transport and send them in. When your MBG is back at full strength (make sure it’s set to Retreat at Medium), it’s time to move out again.

Last edited by Crocuta on 17 Aug 2011, 00:04, edited 2 times in total.

Your next targets are the structures on the plateau to the SE (area 3). Demolish three or four central hardpoints from the wall at point A and move your MBG south. You’ll need to push and retreat several times to allow your damaged units room to move to the rear. It may also be useful at least once to pull everyone back into the SA and recover. There’s a lot of incoming hurt early on in this process. Don’t get in a hurry. Time is on your side this round. Don’t proceed any farther south than the marked area. Trying to get farther south will get you jammed in tight. Make sure that you engage the roving patrol here, though. It will get them out of the way for the next advance.

When done, move back to the SA and repair. If you built any forward repair bays on the eastern plateau as you advanced, be sure to demolish them now. They will cause you nothing but trouble as you move forward.

From here, remove the wall at point B (again) and head due south with your MBG. Make sure that there are enough defensive structures remaining at the west edge of point A to overlook and hold the southern pass. Nexus units will randomly attack one or two at a time from the SW pass (where the factory was) throughout this stage.

As you move south, hold to the east side of the valley. This will block much of the incoming archangel fire as you proceed. Bring a truck along and build a repair bay on the east side of the valley where shown in the photo below. This location will be blocked from incoming missile fire and will keep your damaged units from heading the wrong way during a retreat.

Head your MBG south and then SE to the base there (area 4). This one is a tough nut to crack. The base sits on high ground, so you almost have to be inside the base to hit anything. The approach is also a bad bottleneck. Push and retreat, taking out just one structure at a time if you have to. Once you crest the hill, the rest should mop up easily. An artifact is here which nets you the Archangel missile. Start researching it and its related technology.

Move your MBG back up north the way you came and swing over into the central area (area 2 again). Destroy anything left of the base where you picked up the heavy body (don’t miss the sensor tower way up in the mountains to the west) and then move SW around the lake.

There is a small group of structures here guarding two Archangel missiles (area 5). You can’t get right to them, but your weapons can reach them if you get as close as you can on the west side of the lake. Watch your units in the front – they’ll be taking a beating. Pull back as necessary to allow them to retreat. When this area is clear, return to the SA and repair.

When your Archangel research is completed build an array of 12-16 emplacements in the NW corner of your LZ. Space them out so that no one barrage can destroy more than one of your missiles. Move your trucks out of the way when they are complete, but keep them nearby. You’ll be replacing some of these soon. As you build, they should not be targeting anything. If they start firing, get your trucks out of the way fast – return fire will be quick and deadly.

From here, we’ll proceed along the north edge of the map to the NW nexus base (area 6), and then push south to the main base (area 7). Demolish the defensive structures at point C and move your MBG into the area previously occupied by the first outpost you destroyed (area 1). Build a pair of repair bays in this area. Move your MBG along the north edge of the map. As you approach the NW base, don’t get greedy – push and retreat, returning to your two new repair bays to regroup as needed. With your MBG standing guard, bring a truck forward and build a CB tower in the spot indicated below. As soon as it is finished, your archangel emplacements will start eliminating the enemy archangel missiles. When they do, this stage gets a bit easier. Replace your archangels as needed.

Push west and eliminate the NW base, shown below.

There is an artifact here – the gauss cannon. I don’t use it. Frankly, you can have the game nearly done before the research completes (and long before you could recycle, rebuild, and ship in new units) and it’s only a small upgrade from your rail gun. It’s up to you, though.

From the NW base, drop down into the valley SE of that base (SW of area 1). Set up a pair of repair bays where shown. Without them, damaged units will head off in random directions to get to the closest repair bay (usually right through a gauntlet of Nexus units.)

From here, head south through the pass and into the main Nexus base. Push and retreat, working your way SW up the hill.

Here’s what it looks like before you start, looking NE from the SW corner.

Winning the campaign requires destroying all active structures of the Nexus Main base. (In fact, this is the only requirement. Everything else on this level is optional, but I haven’t found a way to push straight into the main base from the LZ and survive.) If you want to stretch things out a bit, leave the command center in the extreme SW and then head E to clear out the airbase (area 8 ). When there are no remaining active structures, destroy the Command Center.